Although general aviation (GA) flights account for about 60 percent of the total hours flown, GA flights account for about 92 percent of the aviation accidents. About 15 percent of the GA accidents are attributed to weather. Two factors that contribute to weather-related accidents are (1) the cognitive overload of interpreting the large amount of textual data, much of which may be irrelevant, and (2) the inadequacy of in-flight updates of data related to weather. Graphical displays of many aspects of weather are now available to supplement textual weather briefings. Data link technologies to provide weather data to GA pilots in flight are being developed.
Approximately 4 percent of non-military aircraft are classified as commercial air carriers; the remaining 96 percent are considered general aviation (GA) aircraft. Approximately 73 percent of the non-military aircraft are small aircraft, with 2 to 6 seats and 1 or 2 piston engines. Within this latter group, loss or lack of weather awareness has been responsible for most of the fatalities (an estimated 73 percent in 2001, for example) for at least two reasons: (1) delays in obtaining in-flight briefings, when these are requested; and (2) difficulty in interpreting in-flight weather briefings in the formats usually presented.
Where weather information is needed, the conventional method for in-flight briefings is for a pilot to request a verbal update of weather and wind conditions, using an aircraft radio, from a ground-based weather specialist. The time interval for interaction between pilot and weather specialist is very short and is limited to specific information explicitly requested by the pilot. The number of pilots seeking such information increases in a given region when the weather is worst and the pilots may need, but may be unable to request, additional information. This often produces long time delays in response by the weather specialist and may also produce artificially shortened interactions, as the specialist tries to respond to each pilot in a long queue. Faced with this situation, the specialist is unlikely to provide other useful information that can be acted upon by the pilot, or that may even reverse a decision to continue, alter or discontinue a flight by a given route.
What is needed is a system, specific to a particular pilot, that (1) senses and stores the types of weather information that is often requested by the pilot in one or more identifiable situations, (2) senses when an identifiable situation is present, (3) provides the weather information in one or more of several optional formats (e.g., alphanumeric text, graphical and audible) according to the pilot's preferences, and (4) allows automatic as well as manual change of the parameters that describe an identifiable situation.